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The Diseaseome: Where Relationships Matter

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about the parallels between Web 3.0 and biotechnology research. The crux of my discussion was that just like Web 3.0 aims at presenting information on the web as a set of relationships, so too the study of biotechnology must focus on the relationships between various genes, proteins and diseases in order to be fully appreciated.

Then a very cool tool came across my desk, (thanks to Jonathan Gross at BioData Ltd a laboratory management company), which I just had to share with you. According to the description on their about page “The diseasome website is a disease/disorder relationships explorer and a sample of an innovative map-oriented scientific work. Built by a team of researchers and engineers, it uses the Human Disease Network dataset and allows intuitive knowledge discovery by mapping its complexity.

“This kind of data has a network-like organization, and relations between elements are at least as important as the elements themselves. More data could be integrated to this prototype and could eventually bring closer phenotype and genotype.

“Results should be visual, but also printable. Creating posters can enhance collaborative work. It facilitates discussion and sharing of ideas about the data. ”

A very cool tool clearly illustrating the importance of looking at macroscale relationships in any biotechnolgical study. Definitely worth checking out!

This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under cool tools.
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